It is often desirable to characterize many of the properties of a specimen or compound to assist in predicting the response of the compound in various applications, to aid in research and development of compounds and as an aid in quality control of a manufactured compound. For example, it is desirable to be able to predict the rolling resistance that a vehicle tire made of a certain rubber compound would have without actually building and testing a tire made of that compound. This rolling resistance can be predicted or inferred from certain characteristics of a rubber sample, such as the temperature change and permanent set of a material when subjected to a flexometer test.
One type of flexometer, the Goodrich type flexometer, is described in Method A of ASTM Designation: D 623, entitled, "Standard Test Methods For Rubber Property--Heat Generation and Flexing Fatigue in Compression." Such a flexometer is relatively inexpensive and small, but provides only limited information on material characteristics, such as temperature change and permanent set. Other devices are available which are able to determine the fundamental viscoelastic properties of a specimen, but are often extremely expensive, large and complicated. Further, many of these machines do not perform flexometer type testing.
It would be desirable to provide a system for performing flexometer tests as well as other tests to determine the fundamental viscoelastic properties of a material which was relatively inexpensive, small and simple to operate.